2012 Year in Review and Goals for 2013

Last year I made an ambitious list of new year’s resolutions. Let’s see how I did shall we?

1. Go to bed earlier. Didn’t do such a great job with that. Definitely something to keep working on.

2. Apply to school (and get in). Success! I applied to University of Washington and started full time this summer. I have completed two quarters. Its been a bit of a bumpy ride but I guess that was to be expected.

3. Drink less beer. I wasn’t drinking a lot to begin with but I do think I’ve cut down a bit. I’m actually not sure why I made this resolution last year?

4. Watch less bad tv. Hmm total fail. I will watch pretty much anything (except reality shows).

5. Read more novels. See more live music. Go to the movies more often. I have been reading a lot more but completely failed on the other two.

6. Cook a wider variety of foods. Nope. Laziness continues to win out on this front.

7. Tell my boyfriend (J) I love him more often. I actually think I’ve gotten a little better at this. I still don’t initiate ‘I love you’s’ very often but I do feel more comfortable saying it.

8. Keep the apartment tidier. Ha! If anything this has gotten worse.

9. Make some friends. I wouldn’t say I’ve made a lot of close friends in the past year but I have widened my network of people I am friendly with. I joined a new soccer team, met people through volunteer work, and even occasionally talk to a classmate.

10. Do a better job of keeping in touch with my friends who are far away. Yeah I suck at this. I saw my Boston friends in September but haven’t really talked to many of them since. I did get to see a friend in NYC who I hadn’t seen in six years and another friend in DC who I hadn’t seen in 13 years.

11. Start volunteering at the Seattle Animal Shelter. Check. Took a couple of false starts (new social situations make me pretty anxious) but I did it and its been really fun and rewarding.

12. Find a way to practice my Spanish before it completely disappears. Nope. I think it has officially disappeared from my brain.

So basically I sucked at following through on last year’s resolutions. Still I would say 2012 was a success over all. Starting school again was really hard and fall semester was a bit of a disaster but I didn’t give up and I didn’t freak out too much over my less than perfect grades. I went to the second annual FEAST conference in DC and had a wonderful time. Oh! And I got engaged this summer and bought a beautiful wedding dress without too much body anxiety and had a mostly good visit with my fiance’s family over Christmas.

The other resolution I made for 2012 was to be more proactive about tackling my body dysmorphia. In general my recovery is very solid. No major lapses into restricting in 2012 although I still hear my ED voice fairly often. Most of the time it is just background noise that I can ignore with any difficulty. Sometimes its a bit louder but not overwhelming. No cutting or purging either although I sometimes still feel those urges too. Judging how I am doing with my body dysmorphia is tough because it changes wildly from day to day. I bought a lot of new more adult looking clothing for school and I think that was helpful for my body image. Wearing tighter jeans and closer fitting tops was really really hard but forced me to look at and deal with my body in a way that I had been avoiding. And sometimes I actually thought I looked ok. And then other times my body dysmorphia still rears its ugly head and makes my life pretty difficult. Just a couple of days ago I saw some photos of myself from the holidays and promptly disolved into a hysterical mess and decided I should never be allowed to leave the house looking so disgusting. Sigh.

So goals for 2013:

1. Keep on pushing through the anxiety related to school. Be better about actually going to class and keeping up with the work but cut myself some slack when the anxiety is overwhelming.

2. Survive wedding planning and get married!

3. Keep working on my body dysmorphia. Resist the urge to return to wearing baggy jeans and my boyfriends t-shirts. Start going to yoga which I find helpful in feeling grounded in my body. Keep playing soccer and jogging and appreciate how good it feels to be strong and healthy. Be patient with myself when I am struggling.

4. Clean the damn house.